True Grit: Discovering Your Strength Within and Without

Miracle Girl: True Grit: Discovering Your Strength Within and Without

"You are my inspiration," said the man. "You're so strong," added his female companion. Before my coma, those words wouldn't have been spoken about me. 

It took a coma and some strangers to show me the grit and determination that lay within me. You have it in you, too.

This blast from the past Miracle Girl post could well have been written for Coma Chameleon in the earlier days of my recovery.

It’s a Hard Luck Life: My Pre-Coma Mindset

Miracle Girl: It’s a Hard Luck Life: My Pre-Coma Mindset

I didn't realize how lucky and resilient I was until I suffered the worst luck imaginable...and not only survived, but thrived.

Coping with life's hardships is a survival instinct, too.

Coma Chameleon: The True Drama of Covert Awareness

Miracle Girl: Coma Chameleon: The True Drama of Covert Awareness

I guessed that the play "Plasticity" might be about a similar coma experience to mine. But the playwrights missed the true drama of covert awareness. The comparison between their fictional depiction of covert awareness with my own coma experience suggests that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Survival Manifesto: Life is the Universe…and Everything

Miracle Girl: Survival Manifesto: Life is the Universe…and Everything

If there's one thing I've learned during my coma recovery, coping mechanisms are survival mechanisms too.

Under the Evil Eye

Miracle Girl: Under the Evil Eye

The "unlucky" unconsciously feel that they're under the Evil Eye. Even skeptics. Yet, 

I wasn't unlucky before my strokes and coma, and I'm not lucky now. The Evil Eye was nothing more than a personification of random chance.

Thankful for What?

Miracle Girl: Thankful for What?

We can be thankful that we have the strength within ourselves to take on whatever life decides to throw at us. If I was able to relearn how to walk, you will find the strength to face your family on Thanksgiving...and fight the destructive actions of President Trump.

Obamacare(s); Trump Won’t

Miracle Girl: Obamacare(s); Trump Won’t

I was shown the door of my nursing home. That's the future of healthcare for those with pre-existing conditions, post-Obamacare.

This story will be familiar to regular readers of this blog!

God Help Me…or Not

Miracle Girl: God Help Me…or Not

Do theists really believe I need God's help to heal my broken shoulder? Isn't that what the special sling is for?

 

Waiting to be examined in Urgent Care in the simple cloth sling the Getty first aid people put on.

My Friendly Neighborhood Bug-Eyed Evangelicals

Miracle Girl: My Friendly Neighborhood Bug-Eyed Evangelicals

Bias works both ways. I had never gotten to know evangelicals personally before. And they had likely never befriended an atheist.

We all learned that the other wasn't "The Other."

The Godless Meets the God-Fearing

Miracle Girl: The Godless Meets the God-Fearing

Fundamentalists might as well have been bug-eyed monsters to me until my evangelical friends lent me their support during my recovery.

Happy Coma Day!

Miracle Girl: Happy Coma Day!

Today is the third anniversary of my awakening, an event Keith has dubbed Coma Day. It awoke from a weird coma-dream into an almost as strange reality.

My doctors told my loved ones to give up all hope for my recovery, that I was profoundly brain-damaged and would never be the same. They were wrong.

I spent the rest of the day proving it.

Miracle, My Ass!

Miracle Girl: Miracle, My Ass!

I have laid out all the reasons why my recovery wasn't a miracle in Coma Chameleon. Yet all the logical and scientific arguments fall on deaf ears with theists. They continue to believe God saved this long-time atheist's life. It's not about logic or evidence; that's why they call it faith.

But I say...miracle, my ass!

Hey kids (okay, maybe not kids), check out my new Patheos Atheist blog Miracle Girl. It's guaranteed lower in calories than Miracle Whip, and it's a lot funnier too! But wait, there's more! You can now follow Miracle Girl on Facebook absolutely free!

Rock and stroll

Tumblrs: Vasquez Rocks

One of the most challenging places we hike is Vasquez Rock. It's also one of the most visually stunning. Indeed, it has been a backdrop to countless TV shows, movies, and commercials. And next time we go, I'll be a bit more sure footed because of the hiking boots Keith bought me for my birthday.

But I still managed pretty well with my athletic shoes--with an occasional small slide in slippery sections--during our hike on April 24. (We skipped the hike this past Sunday to attend a charity event.)

Except for the flights of stairs I climbed (I avoided the elevator for the exercise) and the steep steps to

our stadium seats, the loong event was only a workout for my butt. Still, we more than made up for it on our typically strenuous hike at Vasquez Rocks.

But it was a far cry from the first time I left the rollator behind and tried out my hiking sticks there. The terrain which seemed so difficult for me then feels like an easy stroll now.

Just as I could barely imagine hiking the rough interior of the park, I can scarcely picture what I'll be able to scale next year, after another year of rehab and recovery. Plus, more appropriate footwear for what can now be properly termed a hike.

We'll be back to hiking next Sunday (we're taking our moms out to dinner on Friday to avoid the crowds). And I don't want to miss another hike. I didn't get where I am in my recovery by sitting on my butt.

Well, except when sitting down seemed to be the easiest way down a steep, natural stone step.

Some easier past walks through Vasquez Rocks, though they didn't seem like it at the time.

Walking in view of the monolithic outcropping I've nicknamed Gorn Rock in March of 2014.

Leaving my walker behind amidst the wildflowers in March of 2015. (Yes, I wound up wearing the same dress, but note the smaller rollator in the background,)

These shoes weren't made for walking

The photo op area outside the Magic Castle.

Yesterday was my birthday. But August 25th is my rebirthday. Of course, I'm certainly no Christian--that was the day I awoke from my coma into a different life.

It's been a wobbly recovery, much the way I felt wearing the dressy pumps, with 1 1/2 inch heels, last Sunday during our birthday celebration at the Magic Castle. Even before the coma, I didn't tend to wear high heels, and those are the highest-heeled shoes I own, but also the dressiest. They have a squarish heel, but I still felt unsteady enough in them to bring my Hurrycane.

I guess you could call it a crutch.

I hadn't worn the shoes since my coma, but the strict dress code at the Magic Castle prohibits sandals, and the only other pair of non-sandal dressy shoes I own have a lower, but wedge-shaped heel which kept making my feet go sideways.

Not good.

Neither were ideal shoes for someone who still wobbles slightly due to lingering vertigo and a slightly weak right leg from stroke damage. Though I've taken to leaving my cane at home because I don't generally need it anymore, I felt it would be wise to take it with me this time.

We were visiting the Magic Castle at the invitation of Norman and Madelyn Gilbreath. Norman has been a member since before it was the Magic Castle. He's a magician who invented his very own magic principle that has its own Wikipedia page.

He gave us a private demonstration that was loads of fun.

I won't give you a blow-by-blow account of our delightful evening, but suffice it to say that it was the funnest birthday celebration of my adult life. Well, I have to give at least one supercool detail: We ate a private dinner where they hold tongue-in-cheek Victorian-style seances to contact Harry Houdini, in a room lined with priceless Houdini memorabilia. If only they allowed photos inside the Magic Castle!

The shoes are of glittery gold, and Madelyn said they looked like fairy shoes. They're the most expensive shoes I've ever owned--$80!--but they were originally cost much more because I picked them up these Stuart Weitzman pumps on clearance at Nordstrom Rack (probably because they didn't have a lot of takers who wore size 5). I didn't buy them because of their heels, but despite them. As I've always said, wearing high heels would only make me a very short person in high heels, with a bad back and aching feet. But they are lovely.

Still, I'm no Carrie Bradshaw, and this post isn't about shoes. It's about my confidence that my fairy shoes wouldn't launch me into the air as I climbed up and down the stairs repeatedly in the unfortunately not-handicapped-adaptable Magic Castle.

As we ate in the coolest room ever, I describe how in the nursing home, at first, the physical therapists counted as steps every time I moved my feet forward a tiny fraction of an inch. Two physical therapists had to support my weight for that, and even when I could make a few actual steps I still needed them in the beginning.

My first unsupported steps. As you can see, I was barely lifting my feet.

It was a technique John Silva learned at Rancho Los Amigos. Norman said that he had an aunt who

My first outside steps with John Silva.

work there many decades ago, back when the hospital was filled with polio victims from a defective vaccine. The technique involves doing anything you can to get patients to walk as soon as possible. The other physical therapists scoffed, telling me that I wasn't really walking and later warning me that John was pushing me too fast as he led me on walks outside the nursing home.

I went on to recount how I couldn't stand, but eventually found that I could use a special walker with arm braces (see above). I would throw myself at the braces and grab on for dear life.

But if John hadn't pushed me as fast as he did, I wouldn't have been able to go home in time to save my Kaiser health insurance.

The "fairy shoes" that carried me from from that walker to the Magic Castle were not infused with pixie dust, but determination and rehab. I felt unsteady, but I had faith that I was strong enough to wear those somewhat high-heeled pumps, with the slippery leather soles, without falling on my face.

The last thing I needed was to set back my recovery in celebration of the third birthday I wasn't expected to see.

Admittedly, this step in my recovery pales in comparison to the sequential steps I took on the long staircase in the Magic Mountain. Still, this is another advance on the road to normalcy.

The ruby slippers in the classic movie version of The Wizard of Oz were silver in the books, but not gold in either. Yet I was easing on down the yellow brick road to recovery, in impractical designer shoes I took off the moment I got home.

As pretty as they are, I prefer comfortable.

The shoes are next to the mums Keith gave me for my birthday. Any bets on how long it will take me to kill them? (I'm a notorious serial killer of the plant world.) Peeking out on the left are the artificial flowers Keith gave me for our anniversary because the nursing home didn't allow real ones, So far, I haven't managed to kill those.

Your Fate is in Your Hands (except when it isn't)

The Secular Spectrum: Your Fate is in Your Hands (except when it isn't)

Today is my birthday, the third I wasn't supposed to live to celebrate. That is a present all in itself. But after my coma, I was given another gift--a do-over and chance to gain many more years.

That's because my recovery has goosed me into reforming my life and shedding many of my unhealthful and downright harmful habits. Because of that, I will probably live many years longer.

Though I already knew this, my illness(es) impressed on me the fact that you never know what monkeywrench life might throw at you. Though you have no control over that, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to control what you can.

That's why I wrote my latest SecSpec post today instead of staying up into the wee hours of the morning to write it, just so readers on the East Coast could see it in the morning. When Keith stopped making my breakfast for me, he worried that I might start backsliding into my old bad sleeping habits.

He needn't have worried. Nowaday, I'm frequently the one who starts getting ready for bed first. I'm obsessed with getting enough sleep.

Maybe it was that six-week nap that did it....

And now for something competely dfferent

The enormous jacket wasn't a fashion statement. Keith keeps it in the car, and we were woefully unprepared for a hike at an elevation of 4000 feet.

Tumblrs: McGill Trail, Los Padres National Forest

Just as my recovery taken me on a long, tortuous path, so went the search on Sunday for a trail Keith once hiked.
Before we knew it, we had overshot the mark by at forty-five miles. But also like my recovery, we found our journey took us along a pleasantly unexpected path.

We wound up far from our usual dry chaparral environs to a place that seemed like a different world. Here, we found pines and lichen-encrusted branches instead of sparse live oaks and sagebrush (which we nonetheless love).

But like our parched landscape, fire had touched this mountain forest, as well. Yet--and here's the final recovery analogy--the fire-cleared areas were already healing, with baby pines growing where their parents had been felled.

Since we've never walked in a natural pine forest before, I've dug out some pics from early garden walks. The first was taken on our first visit to the Japanese Garden on 12-8-13, in front of a very non-natural pine--a large bonzai.

The second was taken on at the LA County Arboretum on 1-4-14, also on our first visit.

The third pic, was taken at Descanso Gardens on 12-22-13. Do I even have to mention what visit it was?

Stopping just long enough to smell the roses

Tumblrs: Orcutt Ranch

One of the first places I wanted to see when my mother and I moved to LA was the La Brea Tar Pits

Seizing the day, in this case, Easter.

(translation the the tar tar pits). Well, the discoverer of the Tar Pits was W.W. Orcutt, the previous owner of one of our favorite nearby places to walk, Orcutt Ranch.

We hadn't been back since May of 2015, however, because it was beginning to become too small for me. The reason we returned last Sunday was that when Keith's sister and his mom were there on a holiday last year, it wasn't crowded. That sounded appealing, since the last time we walked on Easter Sunday, it was a madhouse...a madhouse!

One of the downsides--really the only one--of getting stronger is that some of our favorite walking places have to fall by the wayside. I'm afraid that Orcutt Ranch is going to be one of them. Oh, there's plenty to see there, cool statuary, dozens of vibrant varieties of blooming roses and other fragrant flowers, ancient oaks, and citrus orchards to boot (see Tumblrs).

How could I forget the orchards--I walked through them enough times last Sunday! We eventually managed to rack up 2.40 miles, but the map of our walk looks like silly string.

Not that I'm complaining. Okay, I'm complaining. It's not that I didn't enjoy it, but even though we took different routes each time, it got a little tedious after a while. All in all, we took two plus round trips around the ranch. I also climbed every staircase in the ranch, to the point that I climbed one and then walked right back down again.

I can remember when the "hill" felt more like a mountain. This time, I walked up what felt like a mere incline.

Posing with the Three Graces for the first time at Orcutt Ranch, in March, 2014. I'm struck how fat my face had become from prednisone every time I see an old pic.

As we made one more lap around the ranch, our conversation drifted to other favorite walking place that I've grown past. The world-class Japanese Garden in Van Nuys sprang immediately to mind. Next time we go there we'll have to make a couple of loops through it, as well.

It seems strange to feel nostalgic for weakness, and of course I'm proud too. The fact is, I couldn't have walked a fraction of what I did Sunday before my coma.

I literally didn't stop to smell the roses. In fact, I wouldn't have gone out at all just for pleasant walk. Oh, we would walk through the Natural History Museum and afterwards we stroll through the adjacent rose garden on the way to the parking lot. But I would already feel wasted from the museum and I couldn't wander as much as I would like to have.

Throwback Thursday, taken in May of 2010 in front of the Rose Garden.

Indeed, my entire attitude about exertion has changed. Now, I actively seek out opportunities for exercise instead of avoiding them like the plague. I push myself through the exhaustion instead of quitting when I'm starting to feel tired.

So so long, Orcutt Ranch, with its roses, magnificent oaks, statuary, and swastikas. Yes, you read that right. W.W. Orcutt fetishized Native American culture. As the signs carefully point out, the swastikas festooned throughout the grounds were Native American sun symbols installed in the twenties, long before the Nazis came to power. But I regret not posting for one last pic next to the pylon with the huge swastika. How could any Jew with a sense of dark humor resist?

The last time I posed with the swastika, in May, 2015.

A rocky recovery at a stony park

This time, I was strong enough for Keith not to spot me before I reached the steeper and slipperier section of the path to the wind cave.

Tumblrs: Rocky Peak Park

On our second visit to the stunning and strenuous Rocky Peak Park, we made like our Cro-Magnon ancestors by dining in a rock shelter. Just as they would've eaten their bagels. The rainstorm we were trying to avoid by hiking on Saturday

caught us unprepared on Saturday.

Typical Mother Nature, raining on our recovery parade.

Rocky Peak is extremely steep and the path is sometimes treacherous. It's so difficult that it's even hard on Keith's knees.

Still, I found that I was able to ascend the park's heights more easily than I could just a month prior. It was gratifying to note that my hard work at rehabbing was paying off.

After I had basked in the freedom of having the wind cave to ourselves by exploring the depths I could reach safely (see gif below), we stopped for a picnic. As it turned out, we had lucked upon an open rock shelter just before it began to rain.

It was a good thing we had left the cave because the path out of it would've become a Slip'N Slide. Dry, if not warm, we waited out the rain in our open-plan cave.

Descending on our first trip in February.

Unfortunately, to avoid the slippery slope of descended the path in the mud, we were forced to head back after our picnic, instead of heading deeper into to park, as we had planned. After all, last time, I got cocky and fell down on the descent, skinning my knee. And the ground was mostly dry.

But I'm sure the wildflowers already peppering the park appreciated the precipitation (say that ten times fast.)

See Tumblrs for more pics, including the wildflowers.

Admiring one of the natural rock sculptures at the park last time.

And here I was struggling to my feet inside the wind cave on this trip. It's a measure of how difficult my recovery has been--from the strokes, coma, and the previous dermatomyositis muscle damage--that even the ability to stand up from the ground using only a low rock as leverage is still something to celebrate.

SfMCR: My voice, trashed

It was a triumph when the nursing home speech therapist finally approved a talking and eating valve for me, also known as a Passy-Muir valve.

But less than a week after I started using the voice-giving valve, it was literally snatched away from me.

Every night in the nursing home, I was awoken for a blood test or to check my trach. One night, a respiratory therapist woke me up to change my trach, Afterwards, I went back to sleep. But when I awoke in the morning and tried to say something, I could barely make a croak.

I took a drink of apple juice and tried again.

Nothing.

Maybe it was congestion? I summoned Ricardo using the call button. When he arrived, I gasped out a request for a breathing treatment.

Afterward, I tried to cough up as much phlegm as I could.

Still, no sound came out beyond what I could eke out before I received the valve. I took another drink. Nada. So I pressed the call button.

"What is it again?" asked Ricardo.

"I can't talk," I told him.

He unhooked the tube leading into my trach. "Your speaking valve is missing! What happened?"

I shrugged. Then I remembered, "Last night someone...woke me up to...change my trach." I was doing my best to take breaths between words, but as usual, I wound up trying to say too much between breaths.

We immediately realized what had undoubtedly happened. The valve had been tossed into the trash with my old trach.

"Who did this?" Ricardo said, clearly pissed.

I shrugged as I shook my head, instinctively returning to the mime I had perfected when I could barely speak.

At first I hoped it might be possible to retrieve the valve, but it soon became clear that this was impossible.

My hard-won valve was now medical waste.

"Do you know how expensive those valves are?!" the incensed Ricardo exclaimed. "I'm going to find out who did this to you. This shouldn't have happened. Carelessness like this is unacceptable!" Ricardo was a pretty even-tempered person, and this was about as close to raging as he got.

"When can I get a new o...?"

"I'll have to check. We don't normally keep many of these in stock."

As it turned out, they didn't have another valve. When I asked the next day, Ricardo told me they were ordering a new one.

The next week, he said they had ordered it, but it hadn't arrived yet. The week after that, he said he would check into what the hold-up was.

Each day, the first time I saw Ricardo in the morning, I would ask him about the valve.

"I'm sorry, it's still not here," he would tell me after he had checked the storeroom.

Eventually, Keith found a company that sold Passy-Muir valves on Amazon. He paid for it out of his own pocket, including the rush shipping.

Finally, I had my voice back...again.

It wasn't long, however, before my valve was threatened yet again.

Here are the previous installments in this Scenes from My Coma Recovery series: Part One; Part Two; and a related SfMCR: Gaining the power of the pen.

Breezing Through the Yawning Chasm of Death

Tumblrs: Vasquez Rocks

The history of our walks/hikes at Vasquez Rocks can be told in the assistive devices I've employed. The first visit to Vasquez Rocks, on March 30, 2014, was also the first time I used the four-wheeled rollator Keith had bought for me on a rehab walk.

Keith didn't know that rollators aren't recommended for people who are just beginning to walk again. It was the only type of walker he could find in the drugstore for my four-hour tour of our home, on furlough from the nursing home.

He only needed to buy it in the first place because a bitchy physical therapist wouldn't allow me to check out a walker, as the PT helping me to walk had instructed me to do. But he was off duty, and I was at her mercy.

We learned why rollators aren't advisable when it slipped out from under me while I was trying to get to the toilet. I banged my head on the bowl, but wasn't hurt.

I think the PT on duty that Sunday wouldn't allow me to check a walker out, despite the fact that it was common practice, because she didn't approve of John Silva's methods. She had previously carped that I wasn't really walking, since he was initially supporting my weight as I walked.

The furlough was to work out any kinks in preparation for my pending release from the nursing home. As I've written about before, we had no choice because I would've lost my health coverage if I had stayed in Country Villa Sheraton past October 31.

So, instead of allowing me the use of a walker, she actually endangered me. She's lucky I wasn't injured.

But I was much stronger by March, 2014. We knew that my safer, two-wheeled walker would be all but useless at Vasquez Rocks. And since I was a lot more stable at this point, we decided to give the rollator another try.

I coincidentally wore the same outfit on the second visit.

The next time we went to Vasquez Rocks, on March 22, 2015, we brought my lighter, seatless, three-wheeled rollator. But I soon abandoned it when it became stuck in the sand of the rougher trails we were attempting. Keith had recently given me the hiking sticks which have proven to be invaluable in opening up landscapes I could never have tackled otherwise.

Last Sunday, we went to Vasquez Rocks with Joella. She brought with her the identical hiking sticks we gave her for Christmas.

We again travelled along the Geology Trail. The narrow path, which Keith gave the tongue-in-cheek name, the Yawning Chasm of Death, was now a cinch for me.

And the hiking sticks allowed me to climb most of the way--up a steep slope--to the undulating stone walls I had only admired from afar (see Tumblrs). It was a bit like walking along the bottom of the Grand Canyon in miniature.

The hiking sticks continue to open up new avenues for me and my recovery.

Yes, it was a steep as it looks.